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1902 
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CAMPOBELLO 



New and Enlarged Edition 



By 



Mks. Kate Gannett Wells 



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CAMPOBELLO 



New and Enlarged Edition 



MRS. KATE GANNETT WELLS 



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For those who are desirous of exact knowledge concerning the 
" Story of the Boundary Line," and the political history of Eastport and 
its vicinity, there is no more comprehensive work than that by William 
Henry Kilby, Esq., entitled, " Eastport and Passamaquoddy." To him, 
and also to two friends who gave me the names of a few of the Island 
1 flowers, do I express my gratitude. 
<>*. Especially do I desire to make grateful recognition of the courtesy 

•*^ of Prof. William F. Ganong, of Smith College, Mass., who has permitted 
f me to quote from his two monographs, containing the Journal of Admiral 
Q- Owen, which were published in the " Collections of the New Brunswick 
Historical Society," Vol. I., 1897, and Vol. II., 1899. The original Jour- 
nal is in the possession of Mrs. C. N. Cochrane of Bagshot, Surrey, 
England, and was copied by her mother, Mrs. Robinson-Owen, daughter 
of Admiral William Fitz-William Owen, for Professor Ganong, who has 
enriched the Journal with copious historical notes. 

The Journal of David Owen and original papers relating to Admiral 
William Fitz-William Owen are in the possession of Samuel Wells, Esq., 
of Boston, Mass., President of the Campobello Land Co. 

June, 1902. 



y<- i3sdi 



CAMPOBELLO. 



HTHE mysterious charms of ancestry and yellow parchment, of petitions 
* to the Admiralty and royal grants of land, of wild scenery and feudal 
loyalty, of rough living and knightly etiquette, have long clustered round a 
little island off the coast of Maine, called on the charts Passamaquoddy 
Outer Island, but better known under the more pleasing name of Campobello. 

Though it belongs to the region first discovered by the French, 
under Sieur de Monts, in the spring of 1604, there was but scant knowl- 
edge of it till towards the end of the eighteenth century. Moose roamed 
over the swamps and looked down from the bold headlands ; Indians 
crossed from the mainland and shot them ; straggling Frenchmen, dressed 
in skins, built huts along the northern and southern shores, till civilization 
dawned through the squatter sovereignty of two men, Hunt and Flagg. 
They planted the apple trees whose gnarled branches still remain to tell 
of the winter storms that howled across the plains ; and their mercantile 
skill told them how to use for purposes of trade rather than for private 
consumption the shoals of fish, which, it was firmly believed, Providence 
sent into the bay. 

Yet there were not enough inhabitants to justify the maintenance 
of a post office till 1795 ; then the mails came once in two weeks, and 
Lewis Frederic Delesdernier was the resonant, high sounding name of 
the first postmaster who lived at Flagg's Point (the Narrows). But 
when a post office was opened in Eastport, in 1805, this little Island 
one was abandoned, or rather it dwindled out of existence before the 
larger one established by Admiral Owen at Welsh Pool. 

The Narrows, because of its close proximity to the mainland, was 
a favorite place of abode in those early days. Yet Friar's Bay, two 
miles to the north, was a safer place for boats in easterly storms ; and 
thus, before the advent of the Owens, a hamlet had clustered around 
what is now called Welsh Pool, with Mr. Curry as pioneer, who traded 
with the West Indies, and owned, it is said, two brigs and a bark. 
People also gathered at the upper end of the Island, Wilson's Beach, 
and on the road between Sarawac and Conroy's Bridge, where there 
were several log houses. Others, especially those of Scotch origin, 
settled on the North Road. 



ADMIRAL WILLIAM OWEN. 

While the Island was thus slowly growing in population, its destiny for 
the next hundred years was fixed by an untoward accident to Capt. William 
Owen, R. N. As naval officer, William Owen had been " in all the service 
and enterprise where ships, boats, and seamen were employed," had la- 
bored at Bengal for the re-establishment of the affairs of the East India 
Company, and had fought under Clive. At the blockade of Pondicherry 
he lost his right arm, and the Sunderland, to which he belonged, having 
foundered, he was ordered to England. Broken in spirit and weak in 
body, the copy of what was presumably his memorial to the Admiralty in 
1 76 1 has a piteous sound. It begins : — 

" My Lord, permit me, with the most profound respect, to lay by your 
Lordship a true State of my past service, with the accidents that happened 
to me during the same, praying your Lordship not to judge hard of me, 
in being reduced to a disagreeable necessity of doing that myself which 
would appear in a much more favorable light were any of my Friends in 
Town who could take the Liberty of Introducing me to your Lordship." 
After recounting the services he rendered and the injuries he received 
he ends with these words : " I beg^you will be pleased to represent to the 
Right Honorable the Lords of the Admiralty that I am the person men- 
tioned in Admiral Steuen's [the spelling is illegible] Letter to have lost 
my Right Arm, when I had the Honor of Commanding one of the Divisions 
of Boats ordered by him to cut out the Two French Ships, La Baline and 
Hermione, from under the Guns of Pondicherry, on the 7 th of October 
last, and that I had been wounded before in that country with a Musket 
Ball, which lodged in my Body above three years and a half. My long 
service in the East Indies, together with the Wounds I received, having 
greatly impaired my health, lays me under a necessity to be the more 
urgent with you on this occasion, that I may the sooner go into the Country 
to endeavor to re-establish the same, as well as to see my Friends, from 
whom I have been above nine years absent. Let me, therefore, Sir, entreat 
you to move their Lordships in my behalf, humbly praying that they will be 



pleased to direct something to be done for me, either by Gratuity, Pension, 
or Preferment, such as their Lordships may deem me to deserve." 

In November of the same year he wrote to Lord William Campbell : 
" I arrived in London about four months ago. After long attendance and 
great solicitations, I am at length put off with a pitiful Pension, with which 
I am going to retire into the Country among my Relations for the re- 
mainder of my days, unless somewhat unexpected happens to enable me 
to obtain the promotion I think I have a right to. ... I have spent a 
great deal of money in Town, have no Fortune, and want a sum soon on 
a very urgent Occasion. ... I hope, notwithstanding the disparity be- 
tween us in point of Rank and Fortune, that your Lordship will honor me 
with a Continuance of the Friendship and Regard which I had reason to 
imagine subsisted between us during the five years we Messed together." 

This beseeching letter must have been effectual, for in course of 
time he did receive, not only thanks and promise of promotion, but through 
the intercession of his friend, Lord William Campbell, who was Gov- 
ernor-General of Nova Scotia, he obtained possession of the Island which 
Hunt and Flagg had ruled. But as it embraced more land than could then 
be granted to one person, Owen induced others to join him in asking for 
the grant, that the whole Island might eventually be under control of the 
Owen family. Consequently, in 1767, the Island was deeded to William 
Owen and his cousins, Arthur Davies, David and William Owen, Jr. 

Governor Campbell had proved himself a powerful friend, for pre- 
vious to the bestowal of this grant he had invited Owen, July, 1766, to go 
with him as his secretary " to a very healthy part of the world not a great 
way off." Owen therefore passed the following winter in Halifax, and 
the next year visited New York and Boston, intending to return to Hali- 
fax, and from there to go to Campobello, which meanwhile had been 
granted him and his cousins. 

He found Boston delightful, and described the view from its Beacon 
Hill as " one of the finest, most beautifully variegated, and richly grouped 
prospects it is possible for the human mind to conceive of." Anent Har- 
vard College he wrote that " although it is not upon a perfect plan yet it 
has produced a very good effect. The Arts are undeniably much for- 
warder in Massachusetts Bay than either in Pennsylvania or New York." 

Instead, however, of going to Campobello, he sailed for England, 



where he led a wandering life until August 28, 1769, when he called a 
meeting of his friends to consider settling, cultivating, and improving his 
Nova Scotia property. It was to be divided into sixteen parts or shares 
th.rteen of which were to bear all the expense, while Owen, as « lord of 
the soil,' not only would incur none, but would receive «JL of the 
net produce." By April his arrangements were perfected, and he sailed 
from Liverpool in his vessel (a snow fashioned like a brig), which he 
called "The Owen," and on June 4, 1770, cast anchor in Havre de 
lOutre. 

From the Journal, « 276 large foolscap pages," which Captain Owen 
kept during his residence at Campobello, 1770-1771.it appears that he 
brought out with him thirty-eight indentured servants, "people of almost 
all trades and callings." He was aided also by others, who were ready 
to serve him « without fee or reward, or at least anything but a little grog." 

As soon as he went on shore he selected a site for a town to be 
called New Warrington, in memory of Warrington on the Mersey, from 
which he had sailed, and in grateful compliment to Campbell, changed the 
name of the Island from Passamaquoddy Outer Island to Campobello, thus 
" punning on the donor's name, and also expressing the beauty of the 
natural scenery." It was like the Captain to invent a term which should 
include both a joke and a subtle allusion to his classical learning. 

Immediately he began to settle disputes between the Indians and 
their priest, and erected a pair of stocks and whipping post, presumably 
much to the indignation of one man at least, who was put in the stocks 
for an hour, with a label pinned on his back, « A thief, a liar, and a 
drunkard." 

In August he was honored by a visit from his Excellency, Lord 
William Campbell, when almost the whole tribe of Indians assembled to 
do him homage. Owen records that he received him and his satellites 
"on the beach, with the other magistrates and principal people of the dis- 
trict, with all my men drawn up under arms. ... A Congress was 
held at my house, the Governor settled some complaints, . . . recom- 
mended agriculture, particularly the planting of potatoes, to them; a civil 
deportment towards their brethren, the English, and a due obedience of 
the laws. He then presented them with an English Union Jack, and they 
promised to give up their French Commissions. The Congress over the 



Indians returned to their camp, his Excellency the Governor and his 
whole suite dined at my house." 

Sundays were days of large dignity for Owen. Then he baptized, 
preached, and read the service, though once at least in a shed. Probably 
also it was he who officiated as magistrate or rector at the wedding of 
William Lloyd Garrison's grandparents, who chanced to come to Nova 
Scotia on the same ship from Ireland, and were married to each other 
"the day after they had landed at Campobello, March 30, 177 1." Lloyd 
became a commissioned pilot at Quoddy, and died in 18 13. His wife was 
the first person buried in Deer Island. Their daughter Fanny was 
Garrison's mother. 

As oifset to the responsibilities of Sunday, Owen found much sport 
in "driving" the sea fowl into the creek of a pond at what is now called 
St. Andrews, where he, with a party of men, women, and children, lay in 
ambush until they sallied forth with paddles and bludgeons and massacred 
seven hundred ducks, murrs, coots, etc., which were divided out by the 
chief (Indian) in equal proportions to the twelve families. "This custom," 
says Mr. Ganong, in one of his valuable footnotes to the Journal, " is of 
great interest, not elsewhere referred to, so far as I know, in our historical 
literature." 

Owen made frequent excursions in his slipper cutter, often bringing 
back with him " moose for the people " — at one time, four hundred and 
forty-four pounds. Yet, on taking survey of his scant remaining stock of 
spirits and provisions, he set forth on a voyage to Boston, which, happily 
for him, was shortened by his finding in places nearer Campobello suffi- 
cient wherewith to replenish his larder. He certainly lived and cared 
generously for his "people." 

On February 14, 177 1, he put the following advertisement in the 
Boston Evening Post : 

" Any Families that may be disposed for settling on the fertile, healthful and well 
situated island of Campobello, commonly called Passamaquoddy, may depend upon 
having the most undoubted Title and every possible Encouragement from William 
Owen, Esq., the principal Proprietor, now residing at the Town of Warrington on 
said Island. — The earlier the better they apply in the Spring." 

Few or none could have taken advantage of his urgency, for when 
the " Snow Owen " brought word the next spring of "the probability of a 

9 



rupture with France and Spain," Owen decided to return to England, and 
on June 14 embarked with his family, servants, and baggage, taking 
command of the " Snow Owen " and leaving Captain Plato Denny to 
superintend Island affairs. 

Previous to his final departure, he had held a Special Session of the 
Peace. The various improvements which he had effected at Campobello, 
twenty-eight in number, were duly viewed, inspected, and sworn to by 
twelve jurors, the original document being lodged in the Secretary's office 
at Halifax. Valuable also in intent, if not in fact, were Owen's " Meteor- 
ological Observations," the " first systematic tables made in the present 
province of New Brunswick." 

More munificently than the Boston advertisement reads the one issued 
in Liverpool after Owen's return, in which he promises " to every Farmer 
and his Heirs " who will settle at Campobello the lease " of a House, Out- 
buildings, and a Lot of 50 acres of Land for the term of 99 years," 
with free passage across the ocean and money to be repaid with interest for 
purchase of " 6 cows, 2 oxen and 1 Sow Pig," and sundry other privileges. 

From this time little is known of Captain Owen save that he again 
went to the East and commanded the " Cormorant " at the second taking 
of Pondicherry, India. He was bringing home the dispatches when he 
lost his life by an accident at Madras in 1778. But he died with the rank 
of admiral. He left two sons, Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell 
Rich Owen, born at Campobello, and Admiral William Fitz- William Owen. 

Professor Ganong, in his historical monograph on the Island, states 
that although the " settlement did not prosper as was expected, it never- 
theless fulfilled the conditions of the grant and secured the Island to his 
[Owen's] family. ... It affords the best, if not the only, example of a 
persistence to our own day of the system under which those great grants 
were no doubt expected to be held, that of a large landed estate descend- 
ing from father to son, with the tenants paying rent to the proprietor, as 
in England." 

Connected with this tenure of Campobello, it is interesting to speculate 
upon what might have been the future of Grand Manan if Lord William 
Campbell, who had a grant of that island at the same time that Owen 
received his grant of Campobello, had not " failed to fulfil the conditions, 
viz., colonization ; therefore it lapsed." 
10 



DAVID OWEN. 

William Owen had left his share of Campobello to his young children, 
therefore in 1789 David Owen, in holy orders, Fellow of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, and Senior Wrangler, left England for the Island to manage it 
for the Owen heirs and owners. 

On his arrival he must have found some congenial companions, for 
many of the early inhabitants were Tories from New York. Among these 
settlers was a young British officer, Captain Thomas Storrow, who, while 
he was prisoner of war, fell in love with Ann Appleton, a young girl of 
Portsmouth, N. H. In vain did her family object, " British officers being 
less popular then than now ; but young love prevailed," and the marriage, 
which took place in 1777, "was a happy one." Captain Storrow took his 
bride to England ; but after a while sailed for Halifax, where they remained 
"nearly two years." In 1785 they went to St. Andrews. Through the 
courtesy of their grandson, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the 
following extract is given from a manuscript sketch of the life of Mrs. 
Storrow, prepared by her neice, Mrs. Norman Williams : — 

" Soon after this [1785] they removed to Campobello, which had been 
purchased by Mr. Butler and Captain Storrow. There were two houses 
on the Island, one for each family, and here they lived very happily and 
pleasantly. There was always a garrison at St. Andrews, and a ship of 
war stationed near Campobello ; so Captain Storrow had congenial society, 
and they had many pleasant lady friends, and, as their hospitality was un- 
bounded, they were seldom without company at one or the other of the 
houses. . . . All was bright and prosperous. But a change came. In 
1790 or 1 79 1 the Butlers and Captain Storrow had gone to Halifax on 
business, and Mrs. Storrow was left alone with her children on the Island, 
when a notice was served to her that she must quit the Island immediately, 
as it had been sold to them under a false title, and the real owner had 
come to take possession. The Island had been granted by William Pitt 
to his former tutor, David Owen, a hard man who would not move from 
the position he had taken. Mrs. Storrow sent to my father, who was her 

11 



husband's lawyer, and he, with some other gentlemen, chartered a sloop 
and brought the family to St. Andrews, where a house was already pre- 
pared for them. Here they remained a year or more. But Captain 
Storrow's finances were so crippled by the loss of Campobello that he and 
his family sailed for Jamaica, where he had a small estate." 

Probably David Owen knew little about this eviction, though he at 
once assumed the position of a veritable lord of the Island, interested in 
protecting the fisheries. His house, near the site of the present Roosevelt 
cottage, had even more roof than the usual sloping, barn-like home of 
former days. He built a rude church, read the service, and preached. 
What matter if the sermon was oft repeated, or now and then was original ! 
Could not he, though a layman, best tell the needs of his congregation ? 
He played the fiddle for dances, married the people, scolded them as a 
self-constituted judge, and kept a journal of Island events in miscroscopic 
chirography. He was an occasional correspondent of the Eastport 
Sentinel on matters of British history and theological controversy, and 
owned a fine library of old books. 

To his diary, his refuge in hours of loneliness, he committed his 
records of aggrieved officialism and of injuries sustained through the 
Embargo law of 1807 and the War of 18 12 between the United States and 
Great Britain. Before that time it had been easy to carry breadstuff's 
and provisions across the line. Thousands of barrels thus reached 
Eastport ; and many thousands were brought to Campobello and Indian 
Island, at one dollar a barrel. Smuggling began, or, if it did not then 
begin, it increased. Sudden wealth and bad habits kept pace with each 
other. At first the price for smuggling was twelve and one-half cents, 
which quickly rose to three dollars a barrel. One man is said to have 
earned forty-seven dollars in twenty-four hours. Fogs helped — " that's 
why they were made." "Neutral voyages" were short and safe. American 
vessels had a Swedish registrar, and went from Sweden to Eastport in 
three or four hours. Silk, wool, cotton, metals, were thus carried up the 
bays and streams, and shipped in wagons to the Penobscot, then to 
Portland, Boston, etc. 

Provincial trade was peculiar. British vessels, laden with gypsum 
and grindstones, because they came from ports not open to American 
vessels, sailed to the frontier out on the lines, and transferred their cargo 

12 



to American vessels waiting there. Slaves from Norfolk, Virginia, were 
sent to some neutral island, from there transported to an English ship 
again out on the lines, and then carried to the West Indies. 

Sir Thomas Hardy, Nelson's trusted friend, and Colonel Gubbins, 
were the chief English officers at Eastport, with whom David Owen, at 
Campobello, held friendly converse. At first David's subjects hoped to 
settle ancient scores with some of their old-time personal enemies, but they 
soon found that the new English masters forbade, as their American 
predecessors had forbidden, the use of threats or blows in getting one's 
rights. Then recourse was had to long, stately letters addressed by 
Owen to Gubbins, in which the former rehearsed the grievances of his 
people, for had he not a right to wax eloquent when he had urged that 
the County of Charlotte, New Brunswick, and of Washington, Massachu- 
setts (it was not then called Maine), should remain neutral, — and had he 
not adjured the Indians, who fled to his woods for safety, to believe that 
the English would burn neither their wigwams nor their chapel ? In spite 
of such protests, when Moose Island (Eastport) was actually taken by 
the British, with the self-complacency of a solitary magnate, David Owen 
wrote to his distant peers, " I could have taken it, Eastport, with a gun 
brig and my own militia. I am in possession of all except Moose 
Island." 

However, after the " contemptible Americans " had been expelled, 
David's wrath became greater, since, without his knowledge, the Com- 
manding Royal Engineer had explored ground for military purposes on 
Campobello and had desired Owen's militia to help him. Moreover, his 
tenants were oppressed by a notice to drill off the Island, which they 
regarded as an indignity, whereupon Owen had petitioned his Royal 
Highness, George, Prince Regent of England, that the " inhabitants of 
Campobello should not be taken off the land for militia duty, . . . else it 
will be the signal for active defense against the English government." 

Like private theatricals on a miniature stage reads the rehearsal of 
his grievances, laid before the Admiralty and the Committee of Public 
Safety on Moose Island (Eastport). The "calamities of warfare " were 
not only to be M repelled from the doors of his people " and they themselves 
" protected from indignities," but also he had his own private rights to 
defend. His daily life and his real estate were alike a burden to him, but 

13 



in vain did he offer to the Crown his lands for cash on hand. Regardless 
of British authority, wood cutters came on Dudley Island "to get a 
number of sticks to repair a vessel." Such a bold and vagrant act forced 
David to proceed there (less than a mile away) and " to take action to 
secure the rights of the Crown. Then the harbors round these islands 
" had been injured by ballast thrown overboard from American vessels." 
Yet with all his authority as magistrate and portwarden had he "warned 
the offenders to enforce his notice within the garrison district and to the 
limits usually claimed by a port, by a garrison order or otherwise," and 
had implored that another justice be appointed with him to enforce the law. 

Again does he wax indignant that, in subversion of provincial rights, 
the oaths administered on Moose Island to parties leaving it for a few 
days — that they should not bear arms — varied. He argued that Moose 
Island was never escheated by the State of Massachusetts ; that English 
people would not have settled on it unless sure it did not belong to the 
United States, and that its claim to other islands is a late affair, as in 1815 
these same islands, Dudley and Frederick, paid their share of the quota 
of the parish of Campobello. 

Neither the days of the embargo act nor the so-called capture of 
Eastport and its four years under martial law brought peace to David. 
Under the Colonists' rule he had noticed a diminution in his flock of 
sheep, the skin of one being found a short distance from the cooking 
camp. Then a party from His Majesty's ship had occupied without per- 
mission and at various times one of his empty houses. Somebody else 
had made a fire in the loft of his rented store and had ill-used his tenant 
for putting it out. Another enemy had fired musket balls in every direc- 
tion, and had killed one pig and wounded, either by musket ball or 
cutlass, a second pig, belonging to a poor man, who had at best but two 
swine for his winter's use. Worse still, five tons of hay had been "forcibly 
cut " on his domain, divers persons thereby being cheated of their 
property. Then when he expected to gather forty bushels of apples he 
found the "pickets torn down and one solitary apple only remaining," 
owing to the fishermen from Moose Island. Again he entered a depo- 
sition requesting that they " may be delivered over to the Civil power 
to answer for their offence." But the American Lieutenant-Colonel dis- 
covered that the alleged delinquents " had taken only a few apples," for 

14 



which they promised to pay one-half dollar to the poor of Moose Island, 
and that it was Campobellians who had been the "great plunderers." 

Nevertheless it was Owen's own hired man, an Englishman, who, 
" being in liquor," had abused an American officer and was more abused 
himself by that same dignitary, who presumably was in his senses. 

Difficult of adjustment as were these evils, a more complicated prob- 
lem arose through the marriage on Moose Island by a Justice of Peace, 
under the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of a Campobello couple. 
Was such marriage illegal ? Should the Justice pay fee to the Crown ? 
Would the offspring of such marriage be legitimate, or would the parish 
be forced to maintain the children ? This matter, declared Owen, must 
be decided by established law of the courts, " for the law of a garrison 
is but the vibrating authority of a commission." Great also were the 
annoyances in removing a pauper from one place to that of his last legal 
settlement. " Surely there is much to be said," exclaims Owen, " about 
the liberty of the British Colonist." 

With ardor did he remonstrate against the petty cannon directed at 
his Campobello, since some balls fell near a weir where men might have 
been fishing, and others might have fallen on boats, — and balls, sent 
by a ship's officer, did actually fall round the chapel he had erected at 
his own expense. When deserters crossed over the bay to him, and the 
American officer had come in search of them, had not Owen dined and 
reprimanded him, and given him " a copy of his Sunday-school prayers, 
with a few words on the title page ! " What more could a grantee do, 
who was interested in religion ? 

"Worn out with expectations, he judged it improper to crowd the Sec- 
retary of State with further communications until he had some assurance 
that they would be received without inattention." But he soon resumed 
courage and again laid his views before government : " That the Crown 
alone, without our consent, had no right to tax us and no right to sever 
Campobello from Nova Scotia by the erection of the province of New 
Brunswick, in which Campobello was included, and that no provincial act 
can oblige an inhabitant to go off his land for duty elsewhere." 

David had even greater grievances arising out of lawsuits with the 
Wilsons, who were squatters in Captain Owen's time at Head Harbor, and 
had built across the end of the Island a bush fence, which was considered 
to give the sanctity of a written deed to Wilson's claim. David Owen 
contested the validity of custom, and a lawsuit followed, which was 
decided in favor of the squatter. This decision was very embarrassing to 

15 



David, who feared that through its effect he might lose possession of 
another neck of land. So he hastened home from the court, outstripping 
his rival, and told a squatter who lived on a second point of the Island 
that, as the verdict in the Head Harbor case had been rendered in the 
Owen favor, he had better sell out at once, or else the law would make 
him do so. This reasoning, though illogical, was convincing ; and the 
terrified fisherman is reported to have made a lawful deed of his posses- 
sions to David for a round of pork, an old gun, and two or three other 
articles. When Wilson arrived, belated by the wind and tide, the fraud 
or joke was discovered ; but, as no remedy was found for it, the Owens 
ruled all the Island except the peninsula, which David and his co-heirs 
and successors always called " Wilson's Encroachment." There Wilson 
and his followers established a thriving settlement, whose prosperity was 
a constant grievance to Admiral William Fitz-William when he came to 
live at Campobello. Neither flattery nor bribery could induce them to 
become his vassals. Years after, in the American Civil War, when Cap- 
tain Robinson, the Admiral's son-in-law, demanded that rents should be 
paid in English money, Campobello was impoverished, while the people at 
Wilson's Beach had no rent to pay. 

Valiantly for forty years in rough, even-handed manner David Owen 
administered justice. Once he committed to the gaol in St. Andrews a 
Frenchman, for " feloniously taking and carrying away some fish from 
flakes at Campobello." As the offender went on his way to gaol in his 
own vessel, he threw overboard the deputy sheriff who accompanied him, 
drew his dirk on the other man and compelled him to follow, and then 
escaped himself with his own vessel. Therefore, Owen advertised in the 
Sentinel of September 25, 18 19, "To all officers and others to whom 
the execution hereof may belong ... to search for the said Appleby [the 
Frenchman], and therefore to '■hue and cry* after him as the law directs." 
Signed '< D. Owen, J. P." 

It was a strange existence for a Senior Wrangler to have led 1 
Wearied, he died unmarried in 1829, and at his own request was buried 
in his ancestral home. After his death, John Wilkinson, Esq., acted as 
agent for the Island for a few years. Then in 1835 Sir Edward William 
Campbell Rich Owen, son of Admiral William, made over his right and 
title in the Island for ^2,000 to his brother Capt. William Fitz-William, 
R. N., who, as the natural son of the Admiral, could obtain possession 
only through purchase of his father's grant. 

16 



ADMIRAL WILLIAM FITZ-WILLIAM OWEN. 

The life of this sole owner of Campobello was curious and pathetic 
from the time when a boy, five years old, an inmate of the artillery bar- 
racks, he replied, on being asked his last name, " I don't know, mother 
can tell you," to his old age, when, dressed in admiral's uniform, he paced 
back and forth on a plank walk, built out into the bay, over the high cliffs 
of the shore, in memory of the quarter-deck of his beloved ship. Con- 
ceited and religious, authoritative and generous, humorous and ceremoni- 
ous, disputatious and frank, a lover of women more than of wine, his fame 
still lingers in many a name and tradition. 

When very young, a friend of his father's took him away from the 
barracks and from his mother, of whom he never again heard. He was 
boarded and punished in various homes in North Wales, but as recom- 
pense wore a cocked hat and a suit of scarlet made from an old coat of 
his father, " the first sensible mark of the earthly pre-existence of some 
one who claimed to be my father " he had ever received, wrote the Ad- 
miral, in his older days. He learned the catechism and collects, repeated 
the Lord's prayer on his knees, and thought of raising the devil by saying 
it backwards ; but he never completed the charm, and for four or five 
years after was self-punished by his fear that the devil was waiting for 
him at the church door. 

By degrees he learned something of his father, the William Owen of 
Pondicherry fame, who had died while he was a baby. When about four- 
teen he went to a mathematical academy, where his " progress was as 
remarkable as it had before been in classics." Here religious instruction 
consisted in going to church " to talk with our fingers to the girls of a 
school who used the adjoining pew." As a boy, he " had no other dis- 
tinct idea of our Lord Jesus Christ than that he was a good man." 

His belief in the direct interposition of the Creator on his behalf 
frequently solaced him in these youthful days of loneliness and mis- 
demeanor. The literal and instant fulfilment of two dreams on special 
and unthought-of subjects were convincing proof, to quote his own words, 

IT 



that " they were sent by God Almighty himself, as a simple way of assur- 
ing me that as I was under his eye he would himself take care of me." 

So he grew up to be presumptuous, adventurous, resolute, and 
strong. In 1788 he became a midshipman in a line-of-battle ship, in due 
course of time cruising in the Bay of Fundy. For three years his man- 
of-war was stationed at Campobello. The crew often went ashore in 
summer, tending a little garden at Havre de Lutre (Harbor of the Otter), 
called Man-of-War Garden, which in turn gave its name to the headland. 
The garden was brilliant with dahlias and marigolds, which were pre- 
sented in overweighted bouquets to the few Island belles, who, in return 
for such unexpected courtesies, consented in winter to dance on the ship's 
deck, regardless of their frozen ear-tips. Two of the midshipmen were as 
dauntless in pedestrianism as in love, and for a wager started on a peril- 
ous walk around icy cliffs which threw them headlong. Their comrades 
buried them under the gay flowers, and sailed away from the henceforth 
ill-omened garden. And the little store near by, kept by one Butler, lost 
its customers and passed into tradition. 

With Owen's entrance into the naval service as boy officer " com- 
menced," he wrote in later years, " a public life which may be said to 
have had no sensible intermission until the close of 183 1, or forty-three 
years, during which I have served under every naval man of renown, and 
was honored by the friendship of Nelson. From the year 1797 I have 
held commands and been entrusted with some important service, for the 
most part in remote parts of the world. My character, if I may be 
allowed to draw it myself, contained much of good and bad. The latter, 
perhaps, I contrived to veil sufficiently not to mar my reputation ; but, by 
the grace of God, he has not left me without his spirit of self-conviction. 
. . . At forty-four I married [a Miss Evans, of Welsh extraction]. 
I thought myself a tolerably religious man, but knew myself to be 
as Reuben, unstable as water. At fifty-seven my worldly ambition 
was barred by corruption in high places. At sixty-one I became the 
« Hermit.' " 

" The Quoddy Hermit," — this was the name he chose when, with the 
rank of admiral, he came back to Campobello to live. He brought with 
him building material and the frame of a house taken from Rice's Island, 
and erected his habitation where is now The Owen. In the grove at the 

18 



northern end of the present hotel he planted two or three English oaks. 
He placed the sun dial of his vessel in the garden fronting his house, and 
put a section of his beloved quarter-deck close to the shore, not far from 
the seedling oaks. There, pacing up and down in uniform, he lived over 
again the days of his attack upon the Spanish pirate. Proud as he was 
of the two cannon he then captured, there is no one living to tell who 
bled or who swore, or whether the Spanish galleon sank or paid ransom. 
He placed the cannon on the Point, where they bid defiance to American 
fishing boats. In later years one was taken to Flagstaff Hill whenever a 
salute was to be given in honor of the Queen's birthday or a fish fair, for 
such fairs were famous, until some one on board the brig Sam French, 
which was going to California for gold, stole them and carried them round 
Cape Horn. When the brig reached San Francisco it fired a salute ; but 
as the Admiral had forewarned the Southern authorities of the capture of 
his guns, the timely or untimely salute betrayed their presence, and the 
guns were seized and returned to Campobello. After the removal of the 
Owen family to England, one of the guns, which had been bought from 
them by Mr. Best, an Island resident at that time, was given by him to 
General Cleaves, who placed it on one of the islands in Portland harbor, 
where two or three years ago it exploded and was shattered to pieces. 
The other was bought by George Batson, Esq., of Campobello, and placed 
in his store. 

Island life was still very primitive, for though the people had raised 
stock, and the creatures had fed on the wild grass and young hemlock, 
as David had freely deeded the land to the settlers, the underbrush soon 
had been killed off and stock raising had ceased. The Campobellians 
also had proved no exception to the rule that agriculture is seldom a 
favorite occupation with those who can support themselves by the preca- 
rious life of fishermen, even if that has its perils. 

Here, too, as everywhere in pioneer life, the women suffered as much 
as, if not more than, the men. When sickness came upon them they 
endured it patiently, with that kind of meek despair which looks upon 
illness either as fate or as the will of the Lord. Fortunately for them, a 
young girl, who had been born on the Island, became at sixteen a skillful 
nurse. She was sought from far and near, and taken out at night when 
she had to be blindfolded on account of the storms. She said, in after 

19 



years, speaking of herself : " My gineral price was three dollars ; lput when 
folks was no better off than I, I turned in and asked nothin'. An Indian 
gave five dollars if it's a girl and three dollars if it's a boy." 

With the advent of William Fitz-William, the population of the Island 
increased, and the old man married the boys and girls at church or at 
home, slowly or hastily, as his humor bade him, always claiming the first 
kiss of the bride. A certain sailor who had wooed a Campobello maiden 
was determined that this privilege should not be allowed by her, and 
therefore tried to salute his bride before the service was ended. " You 
are not married yet. Back ! " shouted the Admiral. Frightened, the 
sailor-groom turned his face and his feet toward the minister-magistrate, 
who more and more slowly repeated the words of the service, as he ap- 
proached nearer to the lady, till, with the last word, he snatched the first 
kiss. His most princely gift as a wedding present is said to have been 
the island of Pope's Folly, a present conditioned on his performance of 
the marriage service, which was gladly granted by the bride. 

He widened the narrow roads along the bay, which David had broken 
out, and in his heavy, lumbering coach of state went through snow and 
mud from one tenant to another. The coach is still to be seen, and the 
tenants' grandchildren bear the Owen surname as the universal Christian 
cognomen. The Admiral would often stroll down to Whale-Boat Cove, — 
So called from a large kind of row-boat used in the herring fisheries, — which 
he persuaded the men to call Welsh Pool. Many a little maiden counted 
her pennies by the Admiral's kisses, and many a poor fisherman blessed 
him for allowing the house rent to run on from year to year, though the 
Admiral invariably insisted on the rental from the weirs ; he well knew 
which was the more profitable. 

On other days he stayed at home and amused himself with his books. 
At four o'clock the husband and wife dined with the family and the fre- 
quent guests. The dinner of four courses was served in silver and gold 
lined dishes, with wines from Jersey and game from the Provinces. Silver 
candelabras shone upon the table ; damask and India muslin curtains 
shaded the many paned windows ; heavy mahogany and rosewood chairs, 
sofas, and tables furnished the apartments ; great logs on tall andirons 
burned in monster fireplaces ; sacred maps hung around the evening 
parlor ; and the dining-room carpet was said to have been a gift from the 

20 



King of Prussia. The long curved mahogany sofa, the carved chairs, and 
other pieces of furniture are now owned by the Islanders. The library 
table, the coach, the Admiral's hat, pistols, and picture are carefully 
treasured as relics in the Campobello Public Library. 

After the dinner of an hour came tea at seven and a family rubber 
till nine ; then Scripture reading and worship, when the ladies and servants 
retired, leaving the Admiral and his gentlemen friends, fortified with 
cigars, whiskey, and water, to relate naval stories and discuss religious 
themes till two or three o'clock in the morning. 

Owen's three chosen intimates were designated Academicus, Rusti- 
cus, and Theophilus. His library, which they frequently consulted, was 
a sad medley of dictionaries and the theology of Oxford divines. 
Methodism and Romanism were alike hateful to the hermit Admiral, 
who, in quoting from Holy Writ, always rendered " the wiles " as " the 
methodisms" of the devil. Every week he read to his neighbors two 
lectures " from unexceptionable sources, yet so modified as to contain all 
that was expedient to explain of his peculiar opinions." Often he held 
church service in what was almost a shanty, omitting from the liturgy 
whatsoever he might chance to dislike on any special Sunday. 

The day began and ended with prayers, which all the household 
servants attended, the " maids," as the Admiral called them, — "for we 
are all servants of God," — bringing their work and sewing throughout 
the service, except when the prayer itself was said. If some one occa- 
sionally was disinclined to such steady improvement of the devotional 
hour, the Admiral, with a benevolent smile, inquired, " My dear, do you 
feel lazy to-night ? " 

Breakfast was served at nine. After that, the Lady Owen, clad in an 
enormous apron, entered the kitchen and taught the mysteries of salads 
and jellies. Lady Owen was queen as he was king ; and never did a lady 
rule more gently over store-room and parlor, over Sunday School and 
sewing school, fitting the dresses of her domestics or of the Island children. 
She was a handsome woman, with silver hair and pink and white com- 
plexion, who, like her daughters, wore long trains and low corsages. 
Sometimes the mother wrapped herself in a certain gold and black scarf 
with such a courtly grace that its remembrance has never faded. Great 

21 



was the jubilee among the domestics when a box arrived from England, 
with fabulous dresses ready made. 

Once a year the maids and men of the great house had a ball, the 
ladies playing for them even all night. Twice in the twelve months 
occurred house-cleaning, when a dress was given each busy worker. The 
servants were often reminded to take no more than was necessary on their 
plates ; for economy, though not parsimony, was the rule of the house. 
Guests came from the mainland and from every vessel of war. Admiral 
Owen and his house were the fashion for many long years. 

Nowhere on the coast of Maine has there been a more curious ming- 
ling of rank, with its investiture of ceremony, and of simple folk-life, of 
loyalty to the Queen and her representatives and of the American spirit 
of personal independence. 

All the people were familiar with the great family, while the better 
part of them were bidden to theatrical performances, for which the Admiral 
composed songs. It is doubtful whether he chose as early hours for his 
amateur shows as did the theatre manager of New Brunswick ; for on the 
first occasion of a dramatic performance in that Province, March 28, 1789, 
the doors were opened at half-past five and the play began at half-past 
six o'clock. 

Other merry-makings occurred on the Island, justified, perhaps, by 
the occasional homage of gifts sent to the mother country ; for the Ad- 
miral's diary bears record that " Three large, eleven middle, and fourteen 
small, masts were hoisted on board a vessel, and sent as a tribute to 
England." Then, whenever a roof-raising occurred, he knew how to send 
the children home to look after the chores, that their elders might join in 
the merriment. 

The inhabitants themselves were rather enterprising in business, for 
rum and lumber were exchangeable quantities with the venturesome 
Campobello captains, who traded with the southern ports and West Indies, 
and carried Nova Scotia grindstones to the States. Bolder, but the quieter 
in action, were the smugglers, who, deep amid the woods, near the only 
fresh- water pond of the Island, alternately came and vanished. Much of 
their spare time was spent in digging for an iron chest of Spanish doub- 
loons, buried by ancient buccaneers. The Admiral and his family often 
rode through the woods to watch the men in their hopeless work, and to 

22 



obtain their share of treasure-trove if ever it were found. One bright 
morning every digger had fled, leaving a deep excavation in the ground ; 
but far down on its side, marked out by the iron rust which had clung to 
the earth, the outlines of a chest were visible. A cart track and the ruins 
of four or five huts are all that now remain of the site of this mysterious 
activity. With the departure of these smugglers disappeared the steady 
excitement of years, the perpetual topic of conversation. Thereafter the 
people could only question each other about the strange wreck whose 
rotting timbers were old a century before. Its last remnants have now 
been carved into love tokens. 

Saddest were the days when the Admiral strode up and down his 
imaginary quarter-deck, his empire a fishing settlement, where boys' wages 
had once been three cents a day. Eastport still owned the islands around 
it. The people brought in their fish, and sold it for groceries and other 
articles at stores where it was credited to them. The little vessels cross- 
ing the bay made it gay for the Admiral's eyes. But his spirit sank, 
as he fancied that some boat might be drifting around an inlet, with its 
owner frozen to the mast amid the supplies he was bringing to his family, 
who were waiting in vain for the father to return, or as he thought of the 
burden of this ever-increasing debit and credit system, or of the perils of 
the smugglers. 

Later, when the duties were taken off by the United States, smug- 
gling disappeared, and Campobello business went down. Could it ever 
have been said to exist ? A few persons possessed enough ready money 
to build the picturesque weirs which fringe the Island with their stakes, 
driven three or four feet apart, and ribboned together with small round 
poles. The dried foliage and the dripping seaweed clinging to them give 
a ghastly beauty to this living mausoleum of the herring. 

Remittances did not always come promptly from England, and money 
was needed in the Island ; so the Admiral set up his own bank, and issued 
one-dollar certificates, surmounted by the crest and his motto, " Flecti non 
Frangi." But somehow the time never came when he was called upon 
" to pay one dollar on demand to the bearer at Welsh Pool," and the 
certificates remain, to be utilized, perhaps, under a new epoch of goodwill 
and foolish trust. 

The Island must have had some law and order before the advent of the 

23 



Admiral, for the town records for the parish of Campobello date from 
April 15, 1824, James M. Parker, town clerk. At the General Session of 
the Peace, holden at St. Andrews, the shire town of Charlotte County, 
New Brunswick, thirty-two officers were chosen for the small population 
of Campobello. As in the old German principalities, every Welsh Pooler 
must have craved a title. There were commissioners and surveyors of 
highways, overseers of poor and of fisheries, assessors, trustees of schools, 
inspectors of fish for home consumption and for exports, for smoked her- 
ring and boxes. There were cullers of staves, fence-viewers and hog- 
reeves, and surveyors of lumber and cordwood, lest that which should 
properly be used for purposes of building or export be consumed on 
andirons or in kitchen stoves. 

In those days there was no poorhouse, though town paupers existed, 
for one, Peter Lion by name, was boarded about for one hundred dollars, 
and furnished with suitable food, raiment, lodging, and medical aid. No 
one kept him long at a time, whether it was because others wanted the 
price paid for his support or because he was an unwelcome inmate is 
unknown. Prices depend on supply ; therefore it happened that the next 
pauper was boarded for fifty dollars. Again, a lower price for board 
brought about a lower tax rate for the householders ; and, in course of 
time, another pauper was set up at public auction, and the lowest bidder 
was entrusted with his care and maintenance. 

By 1829 the exports from the Island justified the creation of harbor 
masters and port wardens, — more titles to be coveted. 

A ferry was established from Campobello to Indian Island and East- 
port. The ferryman^was " recognized in the sum of two pounds, and was 
conditioned to keep a good and sufficient boat, with sails and oars, to 
carry all persons who required between the appointed places, to ask, 
demand, and receive for each person so ferried one shilling and three 
pence, and no more." If any other than the appointee should have the 
hardihood to make a little money by transporting a weary traveler, such 
persons should be fined ten shillings, half of it to go to the informer and 
half to the ferryman, unless he had previously arranged with the licensee 
that he would afford him due and righteous satisfaction for each person 
so carried. 

As the population grew, the swine began to abound, and soon it was 

24 



decreed that "neither swine nor boar-pig should go at large, unless suffi- 
ciently ringed and yoked, sucking pigs excepted, on pain of five shillings 
for each beast." 

Then the sheep began to jump fences four feet high, and their 
descendants have increased in agility. They ate the young cabbages, 
and, standing at ease, defiantly and lazily nipped of! the dahlia buds. 
The town bestirred itself. Angry housewives, roused from their sleep by 
waking dreams of depredations committed, drove the sheep away with 
stock and stone. The following night the fisher-husbands, back from 
their business, sallied forth in vain ; they could not run as fast as the 
women. And week after week the sheep took all they wanted. It be- 
came necessary finally to establish the sublime order of hog-reeves, who 
were privileged to seize any swine or sheep going at large which were not 
marked with the proper and duly-entered mark of the owner, and to prose- 
cute as the law directs ; all cattle being ordered to be at home by eight 
o'clock in the evening. But how could sheep be marked when their fleece 
forbade their being branded ? As notable housekeepers vie with each 
other in receipts, so did each Islander try to invent striking deformities 
for his sheep ; only the sucking lambs retained their birthrights till their 
later days. Because Mulholland made two slits in the right ear and took 
off its top, Parker cut off a piece from the left ear of his sheep, and 
Bowers made a crop under the left ear of his animal, close to its head. 
Yet the sheep ran loose until the people were directed to raise twelve 
pounds for building two cattle pounds, and William Fitz-William Owen, 
the Admiral, was appointed to erect the same. 

The poor rates had again lessened, — woe to the pauper boarder, — 
for the Admiral wanted money for many another improvement on which 
his mind was bent. The General Sessions of the Peace dared not neg- 
lect any suggestion which was made by a man who entertained all the 
distinguished guests who came to Passamaquoddy Bay, for his fame had 
spread far and wide as host, theologian, and magnate. 

If it were difficult to restrain sheep and swine, still more difficult was 
it to prevent the trespasses of geese ; though many a bird was clipped in 
its infancy, and in winter killed and put down amid layers of snow, and 
sent to the Admiral as a peace offering or as tribute. 

Still the public troubles increased ; until it was ordered that horses 

25 



and cattle should be impounded. Then peace by midnight and safety by 
day rested over the Island. For it was even resolved " that all dogs of 
six months old and upward should be considered of sufficient age to pay 
the tax " ; but in what manner they were compelled to offer their own 
excuse for being remains unsolved. Perhaps no legal quibble was ever 
raised concerning the wording of the statute. 

Admiral Owen was not only the magistrate for animals, a builder of 
bridges, letting out the work "at the rate of $1.12^ per man per day, 
the day being ten hours of good and conscientious work for man or yoke 
of oxen," but also was overseer of the poor, postmaster, and school trustee. 
For a long period there were only private schools ; but about fifty years 
ago the first public or parish school was built near The Owen. Four 
other schools were established at various points : one at Curry's Cove, or 
Sarawac, — so named by Admiral Owen after a fishing hamlet in Wales, — 
where Lady Owen and her daughters maintained a vigorous Sunday School. 

The mails, which were brought by vessel from St. Andrews, came 
twice a week in summer and once a week in winter, though it was no 
uncommon event to wait three weeks for a letter, if the weather were 
stormy. The people from Indian and Deer Islands came to the Admiral's 
to get their letters ; but woe to any one who chanced to arrive too early 
in the morning, before the noble postmaster had finished his breakfast. 

A curious manuscript book with parchment covers is still extant, 
labeled on one side, " Register Book, Deeds, Leases, etc., for the 
estate of Campobello. The property of Captain W. F. W. Owen, R. N., 
June, 1835." O n tne other side is written, "Survey Book." It contains 
several early survey maps of the National Boundary, of the Narrows at 
Campobello, and of Casco Bay. There are also leases of smoke-houses 
and weirs. The latter then rented for fifty or sixty dollars a year, and a 
system of ground-rent prevailed. The Admiral could not have anticipated 
much income from his possessions, for he speaks of the people as "fisher- 
men, about four hundred in number, very few of whom are, I fear, able to 
please turn over to pay rent otherwise than in produce, — that is, dried 
fish and potatoes." 

In this same record book he writes that the farm called Tyn-Y-Coed, 
or The House in the Woods, is so named from "the estate in Mont- 
gomery shire, late of Owen Owen, Esq., and Sir Arthur Davies Owen, his 

26 




son, and William Owen, the youngest son, let to John Gregg, for ten 
years on his life, at the rate of (6j4s.) six shillings and sixpence." On 
the oldest map owned by the present Company, drawn by one John Wil- 
kinson, in 1830, the Tyn-Y-Coed and also Lake Glen Severn are desig- 
nated. The land opposite the Tyn-Y-Coed, where now is the Wells Cot- 
tage, used to be called Mount Pleasant. 

The Admiral's domains extended beyond Campobello to Head Harbor, 
ope's Folly, Sandy, Spruce, and Casco Islands. Since his reign some 
f these islands have been sold, while Casco Island was given to Chief 
ustice Allen, of New Brunswick, by Lady Owen. When the little fishing 
vessels and ferry boats, which ply between these islands, and the big 
schooners and large steamers are now counted on any one summer day, 
it is difficult to realize how comparatively uncrossed were these waters in 
the Admiral's early years of Island life. 

The first steamboat in New Brunswick was not launched till April, 
18 1 6, and then it went only as far as Portland; and a second steamer was 
not added till 1825. The first New Brunswick newspaper fortunately was 
issued in 1783, so that it must have been able to announce this new 
maritime project with due sensational headlines ; while not until April 30, 
185 1, was the first telegram sent from St. John to John Wilson. Curiously 
reads his answer from St. Andrews : " Being the first subscriber to the 
Electric Telegraph Company, I am honored by the first communication 
from your city announcing the great and wonderful work God has made 
known to man by giving us the control of the lightnings." 

Yet neither steamboat, newspaper, nor telegram could make Campo- 
bello aught but a narrow confine for the social and political ambition of 
the Admiral. An exile because of poverty that compelled him to accept 
the royal gift, he felt that he must devote himself to controversial dis- 
cussion and the erection of a new Episcopal church. Before this day the 
people had been Baptists ; personal loyalty anglicized the religion of all 
those around Welsh Pool. The population at Wilson's, however, never 
abandoned their Baptist tenets, which they brought with them from the 
neighboring islands as they settled around Head Harbor. Those along 
the North Road rowed over to the larger settlement for baptisms and 
Sunday services, which were first held in the schoolhouse, for the church 
itself was not built until some sixty years ago. The land for it cost forty 

27 



dollars in gold, paid down to Captain Robinson, as the proceeds of the 
efforts of sewing-circles and ladies' teas. Blown down in the renowned 
Saxby gale, it was rebuilt within two years of its destruction. 

Soon after Admiral Owen had become resident magistrate and com- 
missioner for solemnizing marriages, to which the witnesses as well as 
the bridal couple signed their names, he signalized his authority by giving 
for three years certain wild lands as commons for cattle to those who 
should belong to the " Church Episcopal Congregation," when formed. 
The lease was duly signed by himself and by John Farmer, in trust for the 
people. Such privilege, even if actuated by worldly motives, proved of 
sacred benefit, for measures were immediately taken to form a Church 
Association and corporation, with the proviso that such persons as had 
decided objections to profess themselves members of the church could by 
no means become a part of such corporation. The Admiral's cattle 
ranged free in the commons, but on all other licensed and marked cattle 
were paid the fees which accrued to the benefit of religion, and large must 
have been the income thereof. 

The regularly ordained preacher was sent from St. Andrews but four 
or five times a year. On all other appointed days the Admiral read his 
beloved service, even till 1842, when a resident missionary came to live 
on the Island. Thirteen years after, in 1855, the church and burial 
ground were consecrated by the bishop of the diocese. Most solemn and 
tender must have been those first rites, when confirmation was adminis- 
tered to three persons, and holy communion to forty others, in that little 
building surrounded by the dark balsamic firs, looking with its cross over 
the waters toward the New England steeples. 

English friends sent money to the church, and the Owen family gave 
memorial offerings. The reredos, with its silver cross, was a memorial to 
Captain John Robinson, the grandson of the Admiral. The block of stone 
from which the font was carved was taken from the Church of the 
Knights Templar at Malta, and carried to Florence by the Admiral's son- 
in-law to be wrought into graceful form, and then was borne across the 
ocean to this tiny, much loved church. The chancel carpet, worked on 
canvas in cross-stitch, the alter vestments, the stoles, the chalice veils, 
green, white, crimson, purple, each bearing the symbol of the cross in 
varied stitch and design, were all wrought by the delicate fair hands of 

28 



the Admiral's daughter, and her children, and their friends, as an offering of 
self-consecration and of devotion to the building up of a higher life among 
the Islanders. These, too, brought their gifts, and replaced with chande- 
liers the wax candles which had been set in holes in the book-rests ; and, 
when the sea called away the men, an old lady, rich in humility and good 
works, rang the bell for the weekly services. 

Interwoven with the personal life of this church was the affection 
with which it was regarded by "The Most Eminent John Medley, D. D., 
Anglican Bishop of Fredericton, N. B., and Metropolitan of Canada," who 
died in 1892, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. It was in this 
church that he married his second wife, who was a friend of Lady Owen's. 
He seldom failed to visit the Island every year or two, and was the trusted 
confidant of each man, woman, or child, who knew him, for his simplicity 
of life accorded with Island habits, and the people comprehended his 
singleness of purpose, even if they did not always go to church. The 
names of Mr. and Mrs. Medley often occur in the parish records as visitors 
of the parish school, with which they seem to have been regularly pleased. 

The Parish of Campobello was and is under the jurisdiction of the 
Deanery of St. Andrews. At its meetings, which were for purposes of 
social visitation as well as for church discipline, the Admiral talked to the 
Deans if not with them. He knew the law better than many of them, 
and had an eye to business. Earnest and simple are the records of these 
gatherings, as of the one at St. Andrews in 1852, when some wished that 
" all articles necessary to ornament and fitting of places of worship should 
be admitted free of duty ; " yet the movement failed of approval lest 
action on behalf of it might "appear like a move of the church for 
exclusive privilege." A later resolve of the Deanery reads as follows : 
" Resolved, that whereas Romanists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and other 
Sectarists are busy in successfully seeking from the Government tracts of 
land, to be surveyed for their respective denominations, to be settled by 
their co-religionists, that the Rural Dean communicate with the Lord 
Bishop and ask his advice whether it may not be wise to seek like tracts 
of land for the settlement of church families as soon as possible, lest there 
be left no lands for the settlement of churchmen." 

When the Deanery met at Campobello it was resolved, " Owing 
to the special calling of the Inhabitants of the County, that the Bishop 

29 



draw up a form of Prayer for public service for those so exposed, to be 
used at the discretion of the clergy." In 1863 the Deans approved of 
employing a " Book hawker in the dissemination of Church books and 
tracts in the Province." "The prevailing sins of our time, especially 
those by which we are more immediately surrounded," was as favorite a 
topic of discussion in those days of Deanery meetings as it is now. 

Among other documents belonging to the period of the Admiral's 
active life on the Island is a pamphlet printed in London in 1839, entitled 
" The Campobello Mill and Manufacturing Company in New Brunswick, 
British North America." 

This company was incorporated June 1, 1839, with a capital of 
$400,000, in two thousand shares at*$2oo each ; interest at six per cent, was 
guaranteed on all sums actually paid on the shares, secured on the fixed 
property on the Island and responsibility of the company. The presi- 
dent was William Fitz-William Owen. There were also six directors, 
who were all in official life with the exception of " John Burnett, Esq., of 
Campobello, Merchant." The property, says the pamphlet, " is valued at 
$100,000, and offers valuable means of employing five times the capital." 
The returns in four or five years would probably be twenty-five per cent, 
on the capital. The situation of the Island " is extremely commodious 
for commerce with Great Britain, the West Indies, and the United States." 
An early prospectus of the company extols the situation because, by 
order of His Majesty in Council, Campobello was constituted a free 
warehousing port. Jacob Allan, Deputy Surveyor and Commissioner of 
Crown Lands, " certifies that there is now standing a sufficient quantity 
of spruce and pine of the finest growth for saw logs to keep four double 
saw-mills going for the space of forty years ; that is, perpetually. . . . 
The fisheries on the coasts of the Island were let this year by the com- 
pany for near ^400, and fish were taken on the coasts to the amount of 
^"3,000." It is also " stated that there is a large quantity of ore about 
Liberty Point." The company was incorporated "for the purposes of 
erecting, using, and employing all descriptions of mills, mill-dams, fulling 
and carding machinery, and will have a decided advantage over any other 
spot in British America." " The population would thus grow rapidly, and 
the Company, having the property of the whole coast, must become the 

30 



medium of all exchanges with all the population, which now amounts to 
six hundred only." 

Alas, the Admiral's dreams have never been realized. The sawmills 
which were built long ago fell into decay ; the ores, if there are any, are 
still unexplored ; agriculture does not flourish ; the fisheries have de- 
creased, herring are scarce ; and the various changes in the imposition of 
duties have perplexed and thwarted the business activity of the Islanders. 

Year after year the Admiral saw his hopes deferred. Lady Owen 
had died. His daughter, Mrs. Robinson Owen, and her children, still 
lived in the Island home, helping, teaching, guiding all around them with 
kindliness and wisdom. But the Admiral spent most of the last five years 
of his life at St. John, for he married a Mrs. Nicholson of that city, whose 
maiden name was Vennell. 

His strange, pioneer, semi-royal, administrative career ended in 1857. 
The boat that bore him back from St. John for the last time to his hermit- 
age ran aground ; for the great falling tides bade him wait, even in the 
pomp of death, until it was their hour to bear him aloft on his oft-trod 
pier. Men, women, and children, seized lantern, candle, or torch, and 
carried their hermit lord over the rough stones and the narrow ways to 
the cemetery, where they buried him at eventide, amid the waving trees 
and with the sound of falling tears. 

His memory nestles in the hearts of the children who play around the 
weirs, and who have learned from their grandsires the tales of his jokes, 
his oddities, and his kindnesses. His children and his grandchildren 
stayed in the primitive ancestral home till 188 1, when the Island was sold 
to an American syndicate. As long as any of the Owen family lived there 
they were beneficent rulers of the people, and maintained a courtly stan- 
dard of manners and morals, the grace of which lingers among the 
Islanders. 



31 



THE ADMIRAL'S GREAT-GRANDSON. 

Tradition and fact still invest the Owen name with tenderness 
and homage, as was shown on July 10, 1890, when the great-grandson of 
the Admiral revisited Campobello. Never has the old cannon belched 
forth its volume of sound more loudly than it did for Archibald Cochrane, 
who, as a boy, had often sat astride of it. A " middy " on board Her 
Majesty's flagship " Bellerophon," he came back to his ancestral estates, 
accompanied by Bishop Medley. The boy's sunny blue eyes and gentle 
smile recalled his mother's beauty to the old Islanders. The Dominion 
flag and the English flag waved from every ship in port and from the 
neighboring houses, to welcome him back. The Admiral's aged cannon, 
oft mounted on ^f our huge logs of wood, gave forth its welcome. It was 
dead low tide — and the tide falls twenty feet — when the venerable bishop 
came up the long flight of steps, slippery and damp with seaweed. But 
as the boy ran quickly up the same steps, there was not a man who did 
not rush forward to greet him. The band played, while the women crept 
out from among the piles of lumber and waited for recognition. It came 
as the boy was led from one to another, bowing low in his shy, frank 
manner, cap in hand, to the women and girls, who had known him as a 
child, and shaking hands heartily with all the ; men, young and old. 

Silence fell as the Metropolitan rose from the chair where he had 
been resting and thanked the people for their greeting to the boy because 
of his grandparents, and then midshipman and bishop stole silently away 
up to the graves of the old Admiral and his wife, of the captain grand- 
father and the cousin, all of whom had been naval heroes. 

On to the Owen house went the boy and found his old haunts : first, 
the nursery, then his mother's room, and next his grandmother's ; out 
among the pines to the places where he had played, on to the sun-dial 
and the quarter-deck. All were revisited, with none of the sadness which 
comes in middle life, but with the sure joy of a child who has found again 
his own. He clicked the uncocked pistols of the Admiral, and took up 
the battered, three-cornered hat. 

32 



In the afternoon a game of baseball was played in his honor, and 
never did his great-grandfather watch more eagerly for victory over the 
pirates than did this descendant watch that the game might be won by 
the Campobello boys. At evening, in the little English Church, where the 
bishop blessed the people and told of Lady Owen's deeds of mercy, the 
boy bent his head over the narrow book-rest, and after the service was 
ended he again shook hands with those who had so easily and quickly 
become his friends. 

The next day the people gathered again at the wharf. The midship- 
man was a new old friend by this time. Once more the brass-piece 
sounded farewell as he crossed the bay. It had been the playmate of his 
boyhood, his imaginary navy, his cavalry horse, his personal friend. By 
its side he had never wanted to rest on chairs or sofas. Once more he 
turned to look at it as he went down the steps to the water's edge, and 
waved adieu to those who loved him for his mother's sake, with a fond- 
ness and pride and sense of personal ownership unknown in " the States," 
where ancestry counts for but little. 

The old cannon still stands upright in Mr. Batson's store. No one 
would ever steal it again. No one can ever buy it away. From father to 
child it will descend, to tell of the English- American feudalism of a hun- 
dred years ago, and of the happy, bright boy, who found his father's house 
turned into a modern hotel. 



33 



CAMPOBELLO AS IT IS TO-DAY. 

In 1 88 1 the Island was purchased of the Owen heirs by a few New 
York and Boston gentlemen, who organized the Campobello Land Com- 
pany. The Owen was at once built upon the site of Admiral Owen's 
private domain. Part of this dwelling house was moved across the 
graveled walk to serve as an office for the company, and in it were placed 
the Owen relics. The rest of the house was left unaltered, the lower 
rooms serving as hotel offices and the upper ones as chambers. The 
following year a larger dining room for the hotel was constructed, 
William G. Preston being architect of the whole structure. 

In 1882 the Tyn-Y-Coed was opened, in 1883 the Tyn-Y-Maes, 
Cummings and Sears, of Boston, architects, both now being under the 
admirable management of Mr. Fred. E. Jones. 

In 1892 The Owen and its adjacent land and Man-of-War Neck were 
sold to some Boston gentlemen, The Owen being finally bought by John J. 
Alexander, Esq., of Campobello, who has leased it to Mr. J. M. Swett. 

The first cottages, which were finished in 1884, were those of James 
Roosevelt, Esq., of New York, and Samuel Wells, Esq., of Boston. Dr. 
Russell Sturgis, of Boston, Travers Cochran, Esq., of Philadelphia, Alex- 
ander Porter, Esq., and Gorham Hubbard, Esq., of Boston, Alfred Pell, 
Esq., of New York, Mrs. Hartman Kuhn, of Boston, and L. L. Prince, 
Esq., of St. Louis, have each successively built summer residences on the 
Island. 

The Public Library, built under the supervision of John J. Alexander, 
Esq., of Campobello, was dedicated in the summer of 1898, an Annex, or 
recreation room, being added later. The funds for the building were given 
largely by summer visitors, the Islanders themselves contributing. The 
library is under the charge of a committee, Mrs. K. G. Wells and Miss 
M. O. Porter, with Mr. Albert Allingham and Miss Lilly Allingham as 
manager and librarian. 

The new church hall and Sunday-school building was dedicated 
September 6, 1899, which takes the place of the old building, where 

34 



Admiral Owen first read the church service. Fittingly is the hall named 
in memory of " Sister Portia," his granddaughter. The parish and friends, 
especially Mrs. Travers Cochran, of Philadelphia, contributed to its 
erection. 

The wonderful loveliness of Campobello is heightened by the soft, 
rounded headlands, the toy-like islands, the vanishing rivers, and the far 
reaches up the bay, which make the opposite shore. Busy, shining 
Eastport, with its New England steeples, spreads itself gently in a long 
line down to the water's edge. At evening the sunset sends its glory over 
the waters and the land, blending all into the wondrous charm of chang- 
ing, glowing color. 

Treat Island is one of the places which enhance the enjoyment of 
Campobello. It lies between Lubec and Eastport. Its first owner was 
Colonel John Allan, who gave it the name of Dudley Island, in recog- 
nition of his friend, Paul Dudley Sargent, a descendant of the Earl of 
Leicester. As Colonel Allan's revolutionary sentiments compelled him to 
leave Nova Scotia, his American patriotism eventually led to his appoint- 
ment of Superintendent of the Indians. He thus became involved in per- 
plexities and hairbreadth escapes. At the end of the war he went into 
business on Dudley Island, and counted among his guests Albert Galla- 
tin. Allan was buried on the island in 1805. In i860 two hundred of 
his descendants gathered there, and dedicated to his memory the marble 
column which the antiquarian and the picnic lover alike visit. After a 
while the island began to be known as " Treat's," for a gentleman of that 
name had bought it, and carried on there a large fish-curing business. 
He was also the successful pioneer of the canning industry. But with the 
scarcity of herring and multiplicity of duties, the weirs became disjointed 
and the houses dilapidated. 



36 



BENEDICK ARNOLD. 

Among Allan's customers when he lived on the island was Benedick 
Arnold, for Allan spelt the name with a £, as his account book shows. 
Arnold at that time, though in business at St. John, N. B., was living for a 
short time in Campobello, at Snug Cove. In the Centennial year this 
account book was exhibited at Dennysville, as one of its curiosities. In 
1786 Arnold bought a new vessel, which he called the "Lord Sheffield," 
and made trading voyages in her along the coast and to the West Indies. 
Once, while cruising in Passamaquoddy Bay, he invited Colonel Crane to 
dine with him on board his vessel. But the Colonel, who was a revolu- 
tionary veteran, stamping his foot, wounded at the siege of New York, 
furiously replied, " Before I would dine with that traitor I would run my 
sword through his body." Arnold went to England in 1787, where he 
insured his St. John store and stock for ^"6,000. The next year he came 
back; a fire consumed all, and Arnold collected the insurance. Two 
years later Arnold's partner accused him of setting fire to the store. 
Arnold sued for slander, and claimed ^"5,000 damages. The jury 
awarded twenty shillings ! When he left St. John his house was sold at 
public auction. il A quantity of household furniture," reads the adver- 
tisement ; " excellent feather beds ; mahogany four-post bedsteads, with 
furniture; a set of elegant Cabriole chairs covered with blue damask; 
sofas and curtains to match ; an elegant set of Wedgewood Gilt W T are ; 
two Tea-Table sets of Nankeen china ; Terrestrial Globe ; a double 
Wheel Jack ; a lady's elegant Saddle and Bridle, etc." Yet whoever now 
owns them must be glad that they are not family heirlooms. Auction 
sales are more honorable for some china. 



36 



DRIVES AND SAILS. 

Lubec owes its existence to the attempt of five citizens of Eastport 
to avoid the payment of duty bonds to the British. It is more picturesquely 
situated than almost any other town in New England. When the fog sets 
in over the bay, the last point it hides is Lubec steeple. When it lifts, it 
leaves its gay flower gardens damp with a moisture that brightens each 
tiny petal. From the top of Mulhollands's Hill, on Campobello, Lubec 
looks like some quaint foreign spot, with streaks of American activity 
across it. Out beyond the town is Quoddy Lighthouse, built about 
1809. Near it is the Life Saving Station. On the left of the hill are the 
low marshes off Lubec, and beyond them the long purple line of Grand 
Manan. There is no more varied excursion than to row over to Lubec, 
and from there to drive through woods and over sandy roads to the light- 
house. Then drive back and along the upper shore to North Lubec, 
where the Young Men's Christian Associations have bought land and 
erected a hotel, with the privileges of fair accommodations and the enthusi- 
asm of camp-meetings. At sunset take the Lubec Ferry to Campobello. 
There is so much to see in each place, and so many hills for the horse to 
walk up, that it is better to take two separate days for these drives. 

Another favorite pastime with the summer visitor is to row across to 
Eastport. It is the great shopping place, not only of Campobello, but 
of its own country. Most excellent and tasteful are its shops, whose 
proprietors have a courtesy of manner which city merchants might well 
emulate. The drives from Eastport are pleasant, each one different from 
the other. Go along the water up to Pleasant Point, where a few Indians 
live under the care of the kindly sisters of the Catholic Church, and where 
Rev. John Cheverus once visited, or over to Pembroke with its mills, and 
up and down long hills. 

Best of all is it to forsake the viands of the hotels, drive up to Meddy 
Bemps, and camp there for two or three days ; catch what early fish you 
can, bass and pickerel ; eat as big and as sweet blueberries as ever grow ; 

37 



pull up the water lilies by their long stems ; buy rag mats ; and enjoy the 
quiet and beauty of the lake and its shores. 

On Campobello itself the most lonesome and picturesque drive is 
that along the North Road, over stony and narrow ways, up rough hills, 
and by beaches which seem close to the houses. The view framed by the 
New Brunswick hills is ever changing, while the St. Croix River extends 
off into an unrimmed distance. From Head Harbor, lines of fishing boats, 
brilliant with the red flannel shirts of the men, stretch out into the bay. 
Eastport seems near and far. Part of the North Road is gay with gardens, 
for dearly do the Islanders love their dahlias, their princely flowers, and 
all the lesser floral dignitaries. Here stands the Baptist Church, against 
which the lambs crouch as if in sacrificial symbol. Far beyond it is 
Mallock's Beach, sentineled by high cliffs, reverenced for generations as 
the baptismal beach. Then come the desolate, lone peaks of bare, purple 
rock, which shut out all but gloom, when suddenly appear the bright, 
laughing waters of Havre de Lutre — Harbor of the Otter — and its op- 
posite wooded shores, leading to Head Harbor. Let your horse find his 
own way homeward, and climb home yourself along the shores of Havre 
de Lutre, which will bring you out at the head of the harbor, near where 
William Owen first settled. 

The longest drive on the Island is to Head Harbor, — the Queen's 
Highway, as it is called, — past Cold Spring, Cranberry and Bunker Hills. 
Climb both, and you will never forget the view. Drive on past Conroy's 
Bridge, the schoolhouses, the church, Wilson's settlement (where do not 
fail to buy sticks of checkerberry candy), up and down the hills to Head 
Harbor River (where, report says, the Admiral once built a brig), to Head 
Harbor Beach, and there picnic ; walk over to the Fog Horn House, and, 
if the tide is right, go down a rocky hill, across a rocky ford, up a short 
iron ladder and on to Head Harbor Lighthouse. Never start on any 
excursion at Campobello until 'you have adjusted your hours to the tides, 
or else your plans will fail. 

This waiting upon the tide is of special importance at Mill Cove, 
the road to which branches off from Head Harbor road. There is no 
place on the Island equal to this for surprises. When the fog is " in " 
half of it is non-existent, as it were. At high tide you see an island which 
you cannot reach by carriage. At low tide urge your horse up a short, 

38 



pebbly beach, down into the water, and up on to an island. By per- 
mission of its occupant, you drive through his land out into a broad green 
field, with the Bay of Fundy fronting you, and the Wolves looking hope- 
lessly lonely. Give a whole day to the weird and sunny beauty of the 
cove and its nooks. 

Between Mill and Schooner Coves are the White Rocks and 
Nancy Head, so called from a ship that was wrecked there. 

Schooner Cove affords another surprise. After you have reached 
it, take the mile walk to the left along the cliffs. On the right of the 
cove over the headlands and along other coves is the walk through the 
almost untrodden forest to Herring Cove. Here is the longest beach in 
Campobello, with curiously tinted and marked pebbles. It is but a mile 
through the woods, starting from the Tyn-Y-Coed, and is the favorite 
walk and drive of all those who like smooth and shady roads and an air 
laden with " spicy fragrance." On the left is Eastern Head, never to be 
forgotten as a place of exploration, with wonderful views from its points 
and down its ravines. 

A unique pleasure, which, though obtained by driving, cannot prop- 
erly be counted among the drives, is the visit at night to Herring Cove, 
to see the men " driving the herring." Each wherry has a ball of cotton 
wool, or a roll of bark, on a stick saturated with kerosene, or else it is put 
into an iron cradle fastened to an iron pole. As the cotton or bark burns, 
the moving boats looked like a fitful procession of lights. The brightness 
attracts the herring, and, as one man rows, while another "drives," the 
nets are hauled up full of wriggling, shining fish. Lake Glen Severn, so 
called after the Owen place in Wales, is separated by a short bridge from 
the high beach before it slopes down to the water. 

Beyond Herring Cove is Meadow Brook Cove, an ideal place for 
the scene of a summer idyl. Into it runs a tiny brook which starts some- 
where near the head of Havre de Lutre, marking the division which 
once took place in the Island, according to geologists. The ruins of a 
stone wall which runs along the brook are no longer supposed to have 
been built by the Northmen, for the Admiral erected it as part of his 
scheme in draining the meadow. 

Branching off from the Herring Cove Road is the Fitz=WiIliam road, 
where many lots have been sold, and also the road to Raccoon Beach. 

39 



This drive is along another wonderful tangle of forest skirted by beaches. 
It leads to Liberty Point, the cable line from Welsh Pool to Grand Manan 
passing by it, on to Skillet Cove, where there is a split rock, on again to 
Owen Head, desolate and vengeful in its height, down to Chalybeate 
Spring, — a fortune for the future, — across beaches too rough for a single 
team with four people, to Cranberry Point, and back to where you started. 
At Deep Cove, near the Point/is a rock bearing pronounced glacial marks. 
Take the drive at low tide, and feel its gloom, with the fog drifting across 
your face. Take it at high tide, on a sunny morning, and feel its cheer- 
fulness. 

Once more drive down to the Narrows, past the cottages ; stop at 
Friar's Head, whose Indian name was Skedapsis, the Stone Manikin. 
Go to the pagoda-like structure on top of the hill, climb down its side, 
and at low tide go walk between the Friar and the hill ; then at high tide 
wonder how you ever did it. Retrace your steps. Go along the road, 
past Snug Cove and the schoolhouse, till you come to the Narrows, where 
runs the swift current which only the experienced boatman can cross in 
his flat-bottomed boat, that carries alike the passenger or his horse, or 
brings over from Lubec the funeral hearse. 

Yet these are notall the drives. Subdivisions of them lead you into 
marshes, plains, and woods, though they are preferable as bridle paths or 
walks. They began as cow-paths, and may end as country roads. Ad- 
ventures can still be sought over dangerous cliffs. It is more than easy 
to get lost in the woods. Still, no matter where you go, you cannot help 
coming out somewhere near water and a fisherman's hut ; for Campobello, 
— in Indian dialect Ebauhuit, signifying^by or near the mainland, — having 
an area of twenty square miles, and a circumference of twenty-five miles, 
is ten miles long and two to three miles wide. Remember in all these 
drives to turn to the left, and when you walk not to be afraid of cows. 

Perhaps it is the water excursions which render Campobello most 
famous. Among these is the sail to St. Andrews, which offers modern 
Wedgewood ware for sale, and where is the far-famed Algonquin Hotel 
and Cobscook Mountain. The West Isles and Le Tete Canal make an- 
other pleasant sale. To go around the Island on a calm day is delightful. 
Very exquisite in its limited beauty is the sail up St. George's River, the 
trees on either side arching their branches over the little steamer. St. 

40 



George's Falls and the stone quarry should also be visited on landing at 
the pier. 

For a short outing, row across Friar's Bay to Johnson's Bay; climb 
the little hill to the pleasant, neat, and hospitable farm-house ; go through 
a grove to the wooden look-out, and clamber upwards. For wondrous 
beauty of beach and land-locked bay, of great headlands and brown hay- 
cocks, of the mystery of nature's secretiveness in South Bay, the view is 
unsurpassed. 

Then, inspired by its loveliness, come home to the hotel, engage 
Tomar and his canoes, paddle across the wide bay, and in and out of the 
islands and crannies of South Bay, the happiest, sunniest, cosiest bay 
on the Maine coast. Go through the canal at high tide; paddle every- 
where around till the tide turns, and you can pass back through this 
narrow and again water-filled canal into Friar's Bay, the cottages at 
Campobello serving as guide in steering the homeward course. But truly 
there never is any guide among the tides and currents setting in from the 
different islands and headlands save that of correct knowledge of their 
ways. To lose an oar in these waters might mean drifting for hours ; and 
then if the fog sets in ! That fog, which is the basis of conversation on 
first acquaintance, the spoiler of picnics, and the promoter of a beauty of 
landscape so infinite and varied that one only wonders how any summer 
place can be without it. 

Yet, if any one chances to feel that he is too much a part of the fog 
in a row-boat, take the little steamer to Dennysville. The ebb and flow 
along the coast in this region is so marked that in going up the Denny 
River the pilot carefully guides the steamer through the whirlpools and 
maelstroms, which are dangerous only in winter. The river grows very 
narrow, till at its source it seems to be set in meadow lands, along which 
one wanders, through the quiet village roads, — for the town is fifty miles 
from any railroad, — trying to comprehend why anybody should forsake a 
spot so soothing to the spirit and so simple in its loveliness for the confu- 
sion of city life. 

Of all the water excursions that to Grand Manan is by far the most 
rich in reward. The best way is 'to take" the steamer " Flushing," which 
runs three times a week from Campobello to Grand Manan, and spend two 
nights and one day there, — longer, if you wish. There is little fear of 

41 



seasickness on board the big steamer. The extraordinary cliffs and the 
sixteen-mile drive to Southern Head are scenes never to be forgotten, but 
which beggar words to describe. The sternness of nature stands here 
revealed, and the moans of the sea gulls tell of even their need of 
sympathy. 

Beside these cliffs the noted one of the Friar at Campobello seems 
comparatively short; yet it is the prominent rock of the Island as one 
approaches it, and its importance is increased by the legendary lore that 
has gathered around it. Mr. Charles G. Leland tells the story in this 
wise : — 

" Once there was a young Indian who had married a wife of great 
beauty, and they were attached to each other by a wonderful love. They 
lived together on the headland which rises so boldly and beautifully above 
the so-called Friar. Unfortunately her parents lived with the young 
married couple, and acted as though they were still entitled to all control 
over her. One summer the elder couple wished to go up the St. John 
River, while the young man was determined to remain on Passamaquoddy 
Bay. Then the parents bade the daughter to come with them, happen 
what might. She wished to obey her husband, yet greatly feared her 
father, and was in dire distress. Now the young man grew desperate. 
He foresaw that he must either yield to the parents — which all his Indian 
stubbornness and sense of dignity forbade — or else lose his wife. Now, 
he was m'teulin, and, thinking that magic could aid him, did all he could 
to increase his supernatural power. Then, feeling himself strong, he said 
to his wife one morning, ' Sit here until I return.' She said, * I will,' and 
obeyed. But no sooner was she seated than the m'teidin spell began to 
work, and she, still as death, soon hardened into stone. Going to the 
point of land directly opposite, over the bay, the husband called his 
friends, with his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and told them that he 
was determined never to part from his wife nor to lose sight of her for 
an instant to the end of time, and yet withal they would never quit Passa- 
maquoddy. On being asked sneeringly by his wife's father how he would 
effect this, he said : * Look across the water. There sits your daughter, 
and she will never move. Here am I gazing on her. Farewell ! ' And 
as he spoke the hue of stone came over his face, and in a few minutes he 
was a rock. And there they stood for ages, until, some years ago, several 

42 



fishermen, prompted by the spirit which moves the Anglo-Saxon every- 
where to wantonly destroy, rolled the husband with great effort into the 
bay. As for the bride, she still exists as the Friar, although she has long 
been a favorite object for artillery practice both by English and American 
vandal captains, who have thus far, however, only succeeded in knocking 
off her head." 

The Passamaquoddy Indians, or, Openangoes, were a branch of the 
Etechemin nation, and apparently of comparatively recent origin. Their 
earliest village near Campobello was at Joe's Point, near St. Andrews. 
The majority of the remnants of the tribe are found at Pleasant Point, 
near Eastport, at Peter Dana's Point, near Princeton, and at The Camps, 
on the border of Calais. Their language is fast dying out ; but their 
traditions and customs have been carefully studied and collected largely 
by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, of Calais, and also by Prof. J. Walter Fewkes, 
who has taken down on the wax cylinders of the phonograph many of 
their songs and stories. 

The folio wing^original- poem by one of the tribe was written for a sale 
that was held in August, 1883, for the benefit of a new rectory on the 
Island, in which Miss Lucy Derby [Mrs. S. R. Fuller] was interested, 
and through whose efforts the rectory was built, the Company giving the 
land. 

AMWES-WINTO-WAGEN. 

Amwezik 'klithwon ya skedabe zogel ; 

Skedap tatchuwi melan kekouse kiziolgweh. 

Ulzee-ik 'lee madjhe goltook kizosook; 

Tatchuuwi tewebn'm nenwel kthlee-tahazoo wagenen woolsum kik. 

Piyemee absegekook beskwaswesuk tchicook 

Pemee woolip p'setawkqu'm'see you wen. 

P'skedab tatchuwe oolazoo weeahl m'pseeoo-wenil. 

Amwess ooktee-in?aboozek ; 

Uppes kootee-in hedlegit ; 

Beskwas'wess lookquem hahze ; 

Nojeemeeko gemit chooiwigeou : 

Weejokegem wee you'h. 

43 



Piel John Gabriel kweezee-toon yoot lin to wagun. 
Kee zee skee jin wih tun ; 
Whu-titli keezeetoon Ebawg'hwit, 
We jee kissi tahzik wenoch chigwam. 
N'paowlin kweezee Iglesmani tun. 



THE SONG OF THE BEES. 

The bees make honey for man ; 

Man should give something to God. 

The trees lift their tops to the sun ; 

We should lift up our hearts to our father. 

The smallest flower in the forest 

Gives out a perfume for all. 

Man should do good unto all men. 

The bee has a tree (for a home) ; 

The tree has a place to grow ; 

The flower has a stem ; 

The clergyman must have a house : 

May this song help it. 

Peter John Gabriel made this song. 

He made it in Indian ; 

He made it in Campobello (the island by the shore), 

To help to build the house. 

N'pow-o-lin (the scholar, or man learned in mysteries) put it into English. 

The greater part of the Island is fertile. The common field and 
garden plants and vegetables grow abundantly, while the deep layer of 
drift gravel affords excellent well water at almost all points. The water 
supply for the hotels and cottages is, however, brought in pipes from 
distant springs, and filters itself by passing through a natural reservoir of 
sand. 

The soil consists of a light clayey loam. " The general surface of the 
Island is marked by the sharply curved contours characteristic of all 
glaciated regions, where the rocks are of unequal hardness covered over 

44 



by a deep bed of soil composed of the drift waste. This soil consists of 
a light clayey loam of rather remarkable fertility," says Professor Shaler. 
" The greater part of the trees are evergreen, belonging to two species of 
fir and two of spruce. Scattered among them are the common species of 
birch, poplar, the common red beech, and in open swampy places the 
alder," which spreads with amazing rapidity. 

Wild roses, varying in color from the palest pink to an almost 
magenta red, cover whole fields with their frail beauty. In the grass and 
round the ledges about Friar's Head the campanula droops its blue bell. 
The blue iris skirts the borders of Lake Glen Severn. The field daisy, 
seaside buttercup, the marsh pea, the fall dandelion, and the sheep 
laurel spread themselves over the pastures in processions of color. The 
wood oxalis, its white petals veined with pink, and the linnaea or twin- 
flower, are found half concealed beneath the underbrush of the woods. 
Among the rarer flowers of the Island is the Alpine cloud berry, or 
amber-colored raspberry, found on the Alpine summits of the White 
Mountains and on the northeast coast, which is the same as the Nor- 
wegian species. The corn chamomile, a rare weed, and the wild chamo- 
mile, both of which are naturalized from Europe, are^found here, but chiefly 
around Eastport. The aromatic wintergreen is the real checkerberry, in 
Maine called the Trory plum. The lovely eyebright is found only along 
the coast of Maine and Canada ; its Alpine form is rare. There are many 
varieties of orchids, asters, and goldenrod, of primroses, honeysuckle, 
heath, and of lilies, from the trillium or trinity flower to the two-leaved 
Solomon's seal. 

The wild strawberry in July^ and the blueberries and raspberries in 
August, and the small cranberry in September, give occupation to the 
children, whose prices for berries are variable. 

In the waters around the Island there " is a richer animal and vege- 
table life than is found along any other part of our shore." 

The waters around Campobello have been the subject of constant 
litigation from early days. According to the oldest maps, the present St. 
Croix River was called Magaguadavic, and the Schoodic River, the Pas- 
samaquoddy ; a name applied not alone to that river, but to the bays of 
Schoodic, St. Andrews, Cobscook, the waters from around Head Harbor 
(Campobello), to West Quoddy, etc., on account of the great number of 

45 



pollock taken in these waters. The Magaguadavic received its present 
name of St. Croix from a cross erected there by the French, before there 
were any English settlers in its neighborhood. The dispute concerning 
the identity of these rivers, interesting as an historical matter, has not, 
however, the political importance which attaches to the settlement of the 
boundary line between the American and English possessions, which goes 
out "between Deer Island and Campobello, so as to give the United 
States equal access through the main channel to the sea, and then remands 
Campobello into British territory," for, by the treaty of 1783, all islands 
heretofore within the jurisdiction of Nova Scotia were to remain British 
territory. 

Each year Campobello becomes better known as modes of easy ac- 
cess to it have increased. Its exhilarating climate, the thermometer rang- 
ing in summer between fifty-five and seventy-five degrees, makes it a 
delightful sojourn from May to November ; for the autumn months are as 
glorious in clearness of atmosphere as the early summer season is lovely 
in its balsamic fragrance and softness of coloring. 




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